re: #86 freetoken

This touches on a particularly relevant terror of mine. I am in fear of imminently being laid off, and being unable to find similar work any time soon thereafter.

I am a reasonably competent Linux admin. Sadly, my main weakness seems to be that I know enough to know that I don’t know every fucking thing off the top of my head, which isn’t true for 99% of my much younger Dunning-Kruger competitors who proffer themselves as Linux “experts”. They’ve successfully installed Ubuntu on three(!) different machines and set up open CIFS shares, and they’ve sort of heard of Kerberos, they think. But they’re Real Go-Getters With ‘Upper Management’ Written All Over Them.

I live in such fear of being called on my bullshit — actually expected to deliver — that I don’t lie on my resume, and I don’t lie in job interviews. This is seen by everyone I know as a terrible idea. Apparently, employers assume everyone exaggerates their abilities in interviews and on resumes, so someone who is completely honest will be judged as having much less ability than they truthfully claimed to have. People want to hear you say that you’re a magician who can do everything immediately. They don’t want to hear you say that you could do x immediately, y after referring to your notes, and z after a few hours of reading documentation.

On top of that is a common attitude that if you’re 40+ and not either in or pursuing some kind of managerial or executive position, there’s something wrong with you.

blah, never mind. Shutting up now.